She is 17, she has earned more than $1.5 million this season and she has broken more records than a rampaging bull in a second-hand vinyl shop but Lydia Ko is still just your typical teenage lassie.
"I lie on my bed, I watch TV and I keep watching TV until my mom screams at me saying 'stop watching'," said the young New Zealander.
Of course, it is difficult to be a "normal" teenager when you are the rising star of women's golf but Ko continues to take it all in her stride. This season, she became the LPGA Tour's youngest recipient of the rookie of the year award. Given that she has been winning professional events since she was 14, it feels odd to be calling this South Korean-born prodigy a "rookie". Having won twice on the LPGA circuit as an amateur in 2012 and 2013 - yes, more record-breaking feats - Ko hit the ground running when she made the inevitable switch into the paid ranks this year and reeled off a brace of victories and 12 other top-10 finishes during a purposeful and profitable campaign.
"It's obviously hard to be that normal teenager when I'm out on the course, especially playing with players that are older than me," she said. "But I think this is really good, because it makes me become more mature. Maturity is a very good thing that you really need to go through, and the earlier the better. It's really been a dream rookie season for me; a roller-coaster ride. I learned so much and I'm glad to have achieved some of my goals along the way."
She may be one of the players to beat on the women's scene but Ko still retains the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a teenager who gets an access-all-areas pass to mingle with some of her idols. The other week she was south of the border, down Mexico way for the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, the event run by the former world No 1 who retired at the peak of her powers when she was just 28. "It was one of my big priorities to meet her and get a photo with her," said Ko. "What she's done for women's golf, and golf in Mexico, is pretty incredible. That was the coolest event of the year."
With the dollars pouring in to reward her prodigious talents, Ko is well and truly living the dream. "It's kind of like a job but a fun job for me right now," she said with youthful joie de vivre. "At the moment the money doesn't really matter. I didn't know it was $1.5m [that she had earned]. I think the better I play the more I can buy things and my mom will say 'yes'. I don't like to spend a lot but, when I do spend, it seems to be quite a bit and it's more than I thought."
Typical teenager, eh?
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